Morant the missing Grizzly Bear

[Jamie Douglas]

This is Morant, the missing grizzly bear from the Candian Rockies, Morant and his sister Quill were orphaned last year and Morant has recently gone walk about. The parks folks are not sure where he is, but maybe that is a good thing. They were both hanging around very close to a town which surely would result in disaster for the bears sooner or later.

I have had a hard time processing these images so hit me with the feedback as I want to get the most out of this series. Conditions were not the best.

Tell me what you think, colour temp, texture, contrast, sharpness, framing suggestions. I have more room round about. Techs below, sadly I can't change.

Canon 7D with 70-200 F2.8 IS at F4 (should have been at least 5.6), 1/320, ISO800 rested on beanbag supported by car window. I buggered up the framing so the bear is centered which is less than ideal. The whole experience happened very quickly and the grizz only raised his head twice... not that I am making excuses or anything :)

June 6th, 2012 at 12:16PM

Cheers folks

Jamie


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[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Jamie - Hope Morant is ok and finds a safe place to bed down for the winter. Nice low pov and detail looks good, especially the eyes. I like the grass in the mouth. Color is difficult to comment on because these bears can vary so much but he looks within the range and the surroundings look good. Only minor issues for me. If it were mine I would probably crop a little from the lhs to move him more off-center, especially with him looking to the right. Finally, maybe a little more NR on the bg. Overall, a really nice image.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Jamie, well I going to ask Janice to hide that 7D, the IQ is interesting when compared to Rudi image at ISO200 take a look, I think there is very little between the two, the MKIV would have been better. :bg3:

Overall it's OK, yes a little off the LHS would be good, but it's that coarseness of the bears fur I'm not overwhelmed by, perhaps to much contrast or clarity. Difficult I know when the fur is wet, but I keep thinking is it that combination of ISO & sharpening? Like the HA, posture of the body and low angle, you could just mask a little bit of the vertical tree in the bushes lower down.

TFS
Steve

[Gerald Kelberg]

Hi Jamie,

Morant looks like a very cool, laid-back bear, chewing on the straw like that! Despite that though, I find he is a really spiky individual - so would mask some of that sharpening on the fur with a low opacity brush. Did you NIK this image? Your post doesn't explain your processing, which would be helpful.

Let's all hope he has a good winter!

Gerald

[Jamie Douglas]

Thanks Rachel, Steve and Gerald. I am out of the house at the moment so once I get home later I can let you know about the processing, but no NIK was not used. Maybe I over did the sharpening for web. I do recall that I dropped the contrast in ACR though.

back with more later

Jamie

[Jamie Douglas]

Here is a quick repost based on the feedback.

I chose to concentrate on improving the fur detail and will revist the crop and NR later this week. Limited time at the moment as Janice my wife was at class tonight so I am on parent duties... not a bad thing of course :bg3:

Processed in ACR and imported into PS as a smart object so I can always go back to the RAW file at a later date.

ACR
Temp 4250
Tint +24
Expsosure -0.15
Contrast -8
Highlights -80
Shadows +2
Whites -58
Blacks -4
Clarity +6

PS
NR layer - BG only
Brightness/Contrast Layer
Levels layer
Curves layer
USM layer

Applied exp adjustment to the FG grass on the repost.

I ran smart sharpen on the OP and that killed the fur detail.


Hi Jamie, well I going to ask Janice to hide that 7D, the IQ is interesting when compared to Rudi image at ISO200 take a look, I think there is very little between the two, the MKIV would have been better. :bg3:

TFS
Steve

Steve, this series of images was pretty much the moment I realised it was time for either a 1D Mark IV or 5D III. I ETTR but maybe it was the lack of DOF/conditions that affected the IQ. A little frustrating as these encounters don't come by all that often.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi Jamie. I hope Morant is still alive and well, as I presume you do too...

Your repost looks much better ito the fur, but the bear looks a touch darker (less fine detail visible)?
Sharpening high-ish ISO shots on the 7D is a beast to tame, but it can be done.
Would you be willing to pop me the RAW file via Dropbox or YouSendit, would love to work with it?

[Jamie Douglas]

Hi Jamie. I hope Morant is still alive and well, as I presume you do too...

Your repost looks much better ito the fur, but the bear looks a touch darker (less fine detail visible)?
Sharpening high-ish ISO shots on the 7D is a beast to tame, but it can be done.
Would you be willing to pop me the RAW file via Dropbox or YouSendit, would love to work with it?

Thanks Morkel and sure, PM me me your email address. I didn't work the repost to the full potential as I wanted to make sure the fur looked better first and then work it to where it should be.

I'd be very interested to see what you could make of it though.
Cheers buddy :cheers:

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi Jamie, as per my email, here's my rework from the RAW.
Feel free to request me to remove it here if you so wish :w3

Crop: went for a classic ROT placement, with one of the branches in the BG 'framing' him at the top
WB: adjusted a bit warmer and tone a bit more green as opposed to magenta


created layer of the bear only, feathered and contracted to prevent adjustments bleeding onto BG


downsized to 1000px wide


one round NR to BG - strength 6. 60%, no sharpening


ran Robert's luminosity burning mask on BG @ 10% opacity, same for bear-layer


ran Nik Tonal Contrast, all settings 13% except saturation 7%
one slight round of smart sharpen after that, 0.2px, 125%
selected face, another round of slight sharpening as above
reduced magenta and blues in the bear (had a bit of a cast)
burned highlights 5% on the bear, dodged shadows 5% on the bear
dodged midtones on the face, 5% - all dodging, burning one stroke over areas
burned grass in front of bear a bit (midtones)


What do you think?

[Morkel Erasmus]

Looking at it now in context of your previous posts, I might go a tad darker overall... :e3

[Jamie Douglas]

Thanks for taking the time to do a rework Morkel :5. I am on the iPad at the moment so I will take look later tonight on the big screen.

Thanks for the detailed email and ill reply with my thoughts later on.

cheers buddy

Jamie